James W. Westerman

Are Universities Creating Millennial Narcissistic Employees? An Empirical Examination of Narcissism in Business Students and Its Implications:

The authors investigate whether narcissism levels are significantly higher in undergraduate business students than psychology students, whether business schools are reinforcing narcissism in the classroom, and whether narcissism is influencing student salary and career expectations. Data were collected from Millennial students (n = 536) and faculty at an AACSB-accredited comprehensive state university. Results indicate that the current generation of college students has significantly higher levels of narcissism than college students of the past, business students possess significantly higher levels of narcissism than psychology students, narcissism does not have a significant (positive or negative) relationship with business school classroom outcomes, and narcissists expect to have significantly more career success in terms of ease of finding a job, salary, and promotions. Considering the well-documented and profoundly negative implications of narcissism for workplace environments, this finding suggests a need for future research on the impact of increasing student narcissism in business students and on successful intervention strategies.

Narcissism, Materialism, and Environmental Ethics in Business Students

We investigate the relationships between narcissism, materialism, and environmental ethics in undergraduate business students. Data were collected from business students (n = 405) at an Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business–accredited business school at a comprehensive state university. Results indicate that narcissism has an indirect effect on business students’ environmental ethics. Narcissism was significantly related to materialism, and materialism was significantly related to lower levels of environmental ethics. Considering increasing levels of narcissism among business students, we discuss the potential for future research and potential intervention strategies.

Personality and national culture

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between individual personality and compensation package preferences and whether cross‐cultural differences exist in these preferences in the USA and India.Design/methodology/approach – A survey methodology was used and subjects included 175 MBA students of two universities, one in the USA and one in India. Measurement instruments included a Big Five personality measure and a compensation pay strategy typology.Findings – Results indicated a significantly different pattern of results between subjects in the two countries. In the India sample, introversion was a significant predictor of a security/commitment pay strategy and extroversion and neuroticism were significant predictors of performance‐driven pay strategies. In the US sample, none of the personality variables was predictive of pay strategy preferences.Practical implications – Multinational firms should reconsider “one‐size‐fits‐all” compensation plans and tailor strategies to fit t...

Linking spirituality and values to personal initiative through psychological empowerment

To answer calls by organizational scholars for empirical works examining the important individual and contextual antecedents of personal initiative, we develop and test a model in which spirituality and alignment with organizational spiritual values result in greater personal initiative ratings by supervisors through the mediating effects of psychological empowerment. Results from supervisor–subordinate dyadic data (N = 150) obtained from employed MBA students indicated that psychological empowerment partially mediates the influence of spirituality on personal initiative and fully mediates the relationship between organizational spiritual values alignment and personal initiative. These results suggest that spirituality and organizational spiritual values alignment represent key antecedents of personal initiative and that psychological empowerment is an important intermediary of these links. Implications are discussed.

Images of God and their role in the workplace

This study investigated the relationship between an individual’s religious beliefs, conscientiousness, and ethical development. A survey was given to 250 business and psychology students at a mid‐sized university in the southeastern United States that included questions pertaining to ethics, conscientiousness, and the students’ beliefs about God based on the Baylor Institute Typology. Our findings indicate that God Image had significant but differential effects on conscientiousness and ethical development. Recognition of these important relationships may assist managers in developing an improved understanding of values, attitudes, and resulting behaviors of employees in the workplace, and may present opportunities for organizational interventions to improve employee and team performance.

Social Protest Novels in Management Education: Using Hawk's Nest to Enhance Stakeholder Analysis

This article examines the potential of the social protest novel as a teaching tool in the management classroom. It suggests that the social protest novel provides a uniquely powerful medium in that it effectively captures the student’s imagination and interest with an engrossing narrative, personalizes the importance of management issues and decisions through a student’s identification with the characters, and utilizes its grounding in real world events to demonstrate the capacity for change. This article introduces Hubert Skidmore’s Hawk’s Nest as a powerful social protest novel for use in the management classroom, with specific applications in stakeholder analysis and business ethics.

Employee Equity Incentives And Venture Capitalist Involvement: Examining The Effects On Ipo Performance

We examine the effects of venture capitalist involvement and equity incentives for all employees on the performance of initial public offering firms. Data was collected from 402 IPO firms, representing 242 non-VC backed and 160 VC backed firms. Results indicate venture capitalists positively influence the likelihood the portfolio firm will offer equity incentives to all employees. Consistent with the agency theory argument that monitoring and incentives can behave as complements to one another, the results suggest venture capitalist backing and incentive stock options for all employees operate in concert to have a positive effect on stock price performance three years after the initial public offering.

Does social justice knowledge matter? Education for sustainable development and student attitudes

Recent conjecture on the potential primacy of physical environmental components in education for sustainable development (ESD) efforts serves to question the centrality of social justice education as a component of ESD. This research explores a sustainable development student’s basic knowledge of social justice conditions in their country of residence and its relationships to policy attitudes that should be of importance to ESD, including beliefs about the importance of corporate social responsibility, their endorsement of gross national product as an effective measure of progress, their overall assessment of the social fairness of current national social justice policy, and their endorsement of the goals of Occupy Wall Street. Results obtained using path-model hypothesis testing indicate that accuracy of knowledge of US standing on social justice issues is significantly related to these policy attitudes, providing support for social justice content in ESD endeavors to create students empowered for engagement in broader policy goals.

Belief in God: the differential prediction of workplace values

We investigate the influence of three individual differences in the prediction of one’s workplace values: belief in God, conscientiousness, and Machiavellianism. Data were collected from students (n = 247) at a comprehensive university in the southeastern USA. The results supported the hypotheses, as belief in God, conscientiousness, and Machiavellianism were each predictive of different sets of personal values of importance to the workplace. The most intriguing result was the strength of one’s belief in God as a predictor of beneficial and organizationally relevant values. In ethically challenged work environments, virtuous advocates may provide a strong moral and social compass for organizations. These results also provide a foundation in demonstrating that those with higher belief in God endorse a different values profile than do those who are high on conscientiousness or Machiavellianism.

Rethinking the role of performance appraisal in total quality management: An argument for the use of peers as raters

Historically, total quality management theory argues against the use of traditional performance appraisal systems. However, contemporary managers need a means of gathering information for human resource decisions concerning individuals. This study examines the suitability of peer appraisals for the TQM environment, and the potential impact peer appraisals may have on enhancing employee commitment to the TQM process as viewed through a procedural justice framework.